


The Meteorologist on Channel 21

by ArgentRose



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, First Meetings, Inaccurate representation of meteorology, M/M, Meteorology, XiuHan are best friends, slightly crackish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26054173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentRose/pseuds/ArgentRose
Summary: In which Minseok starts watching the news because of the attractive meteorologist on Channel 21.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39
Collections: EXO College AU





	The Meteorologist on Channel 21

**Author's Note:**

> 🚨 DISCLAIMER: 🚨 This work is not intended to infringe upon the original work/works' copyright. This was made PURELY for entertainment purposes ONLY. All representations of the characters/people featured are not meant to reflect upon any of the Real Life people or officials. Although this work features a ship, any relationships featured are not meant to be reflected upon Real Life people or officials. To reiterate, this is for ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY, and just because the work features a specific relationship does NOT mean that I want the featured characters or people together IN REAL LIFE.

Minseok  _ never  _ watched the news. It was boring and too politically skewed at times. If he did get news about the world's events, it was from whatever social media he had on his phone. If he needed to know what the weather was like for the day, he'd look it up online. He  _ never  _ watched the news.

Neither did most of his friends. The only friend he had that  _ did  _ watch the news like an old man was his friend Junmyeon. He was like a grandpa, always watching the news instead of getting with current technology. It was the twenty first century, for heaven's sake! Junmyeon  _ needed _ to get with current times! What kind of college student will sit down with News Channel 21 open on his television while he goes to cook instant noodles in the kitchen?! Junmyeon, that's who. And here was Minseok and Luhan, just waiting for him to finish heating the three cups of water for their waiting noodles.

"Can we watch something else, Junmyeon?" Luhan asked. He flops back onto the couch when he sees Junmyeon shake his head. "Why can't we watch soccer or something?!"

"They cover sports, Lu!" Junmyeon replies in protest. "Besides, the meteorologist is coming up and I want to know what the weather's going to be like."

Minseok grumbles, "Just look it up online, Junmyeon! Like everyone else!"

Junmyeon walks over with a hot kettle and pours the almost boiling water into their respective noodle cups. As he closes the lids for the noodles to heat and soften, he rolls his eyes while huffing. "I'd like a professional opinion, thank you very much, hyung."

Luhan laughs at him. "This isn't even the actual news! It's the school's news channel!"

"I'm supporting them, alright?"

Minseok rolls his eyes and waves his friend off as he goes to place the kettle back in the kitchen. He looks between the television and his slow-cooking cup of noodles. He almost groans when the news broadcaster, a young man named Chanyeol, makes an announcement that he and his co-reporter Baekhyun were handing the program off to some bloke named Jongdae to explain the weather.

When the camera cuts to the meteorologist, Minseok straightens immediately. His attention has zoned straight at the meteorologist named Jongdae's face. He could barely hear the muffled concerns of Luhan and Junmyeon, but they sounded distant as he listened keenly to the words that were being spilled from Jongdae's gorgeous kittenish lips.

"For the rest of this week, we're going to be seeing lows of roughly seventy with some pretty heavy winds of maybe 20 miles per hour. But I'm just gust-imating," Jongdae says. There are some howls of laughter and protest claiming how awful the pun was from behind the camera. God, Minseok could feel his heart racing. He watches as Jongdae sticks his tongue out beneath a row of perfectly aligned white teeth, the corners of his lips turning upwards evermore. Oh GOD, he was so cute. "But the weekend and the following week indicate that the wind storms will slowly ease up. Just don't have any outdoor parties; you never know if you'll have some uninvited gusts." There’s another shout from off camera (something about how Jongdae can’t use the same pun twice) before it cuts back briefly to Chanyeol and Baekhyun (one of which has their head buried in their hands while the other bangs the table, howling with laughter).

Luhan very audibly groans beside him while Junmyeon shakes with laughter from the kitchen. Minseok watches as Jongdae pushes his glasses up before he continues the rest of his report with an air of professionalism. Then he makes a few more witty jokes before directing the cut back to the primary reporters. He finally looks away from the TV, cheeks flushed a deep red.

"Who was that," he asks after recovering.

"The weatherman? That's Jongdae," Junmyeon answered. He picks up his cup of noodles and begins to eat. "I think he's one of the new students brought on to the project."

Even though Minseok has definitely heard and thought about the name several million times, he still wants and feels like he needs to hear it in order for it to be ingrained in his head. Jongdae had definitely left an impression on him, that's for sure. He begins to eat when Junmyeon and Luhan pointedly tell him that his noodles were getting soggy. All the while, even if the other two were engaged in a conversation about soccer that he was sure Luhan brought up, he thought about Jongdae. He didn't know why, but he suddenly had the urge to tune the TV back to Channel 21 when Luhan flipped to a channel that was playing Dragon Ball.

⚡🌦⚡

Minseok had never seen it coming, nor did his friends ever expect it to happen. Luhan cried about how Junmyeon corrupted him back to "the old way" while the aforementioned male happily cheered and spontaneously encouraged him to continue. Of course, he never explained to them why he was watching the news channel, but one didn't have to be psychic to figure out why. It was easy to read in his movements; the way he slouched when the reporters gave the general news and happenings that they pulled up from the journalism majors behind the camera, the way he slowly perks up when they announce the weather, the way he basically sits tall and straight when the weatherman actually comes on, and then the way he slouches again when said weatherman is finished. Someone who was an outsider would think he just really enjoyed hearing about the weather. Junmyeon and Luhan, however, figured it out in no time flat.

"Are you really only watching for Jongdae?" Junmyeon asks rather exasperatedly. When the eldest nods, he slumps in defeat.

"So you don't even care about the weather. You just care about him?" Luhan adds. When the eldest nods again, he sighs and slouches against the backrest of the couch.

"Maybe it's really childish, but I can't help it," he sighs. While he was a romantic, he wasn't romantic or idealistic enough to say that he felt something through the thick screen of electricity and radiation. No connection, not yet. But he was hoping that one day around the large landscape of their university campus, he would meet Jongdae. Maybe then, in person, he could feel a connection. Something that signalled to Minseok's inner hopeful self that, indeed, Jongdae was The One. "Come on," he continues, "haven't either of you ever felt that way with someone or something? Where you'd either visit or watch something just because they were working at a certain place or something?"

While both of his friends shook their heads, he could tell there was a bit of truth they weren't telling him. When he cocks a brow, they both throw their hands down onto their laps with a loud, clothed slap.

"I guess I understand you, hyung," Junmyeon groans.

"Yeah, you got me there, Baozi," Luhan sighs.

Minseok nods his head once. His lips quirk slightly as he continues to glue his eyes to the television that sat as idle background noise. Jongdae was on the screen again, dressed this time in a rather cute navy blue sweater that had a red and white stripe running across the center with a pair of khakis. His glasses were slipping down the bridge of his nose as he talked, gesticulating wildly back and forth between the camera and the display behind him. On his lips is another smile that Minseok had grown oh-so-quickly to love. He laughs, then, when Jongdae does, and already misses his presence when the camera cuts back to the reporters.

“You are in way over your head, gege,” Luhan gripes. “What are the chances that you’ll ever meet him?”

“I mean...you both met your special someone out of the blue. Maybe this is it for me?”

“I’m not disregarding the fact that you’ll meet him. Just...how will you meet him? You don’t know him.”

“I know him.”

“Yeah,” Luhan scoffs. “You know him. As ‘Jongdae from Channel Twenty-One.’”

“Hyung,” Junmyeon interrupts. He apologizes when the two eldest boys look at him. “I could introduce you to him, if you’d like.”

Minseok’s eyes widen tenfold when he catches the youngest’s signature sincere smile. He wasn’t bluffing--it was unlike Junmyeon to do so--and he could actually allow them to meet. Yeah, Minseok would feel dirty using his friend as a ticket to meet his crush. He’d feel insanely dirty, really. But maybe Junmyeon was going to ask for something in return? Not that the possibility of that happening was likely either--sometimes Junmyeon was too nice for his own good. “Really,” he hears himself blurt incredulously. He mentally punches himself for walking all over Junmyeon. Perhaps Luhan could read his thoughts because he actually physically assaults Minseok’s arm with an indignant huff.

“Of course,” he answers. “I’d just have to see when he’s free.”

Wait, wait. Wait. When he’s free? Minseok smiles, but isn’t so much as a happy, carefree smile as it was one chalked full of worry, full of angst, full of something along the lines of not wanting to disturb someone when they were busy. “If that’s the case,” he quickly coughs, “then it’s alright. I wouldn’t want to bother him.”

Luhan groans. “First you want to meet him and now you don’t want to?”

“I don’t want to bother him.”

Junmyeon waves it off. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. I’ll text him tonight and let you know maybe in two days.”

The idea that Junmyeon had his crush’s number does something to Minseok’s nerves, but he discards the sudden jolt of jealousy and envy because that’s something he really shouldn’t be feeling right now. Especially when his friend of two years had offered to do something that would ultimately help him get closer to his crush. Well, that would at least allow him to meet him rather than admire him from the far flung end of a couch and a television screen. “Thanks, Junmyeon,” he manages with a smile. He hopes it doesn’t look forced or guilt-ridden.

Perhaps Junmyeon didn’t sense his slight discomfort or guilt because he simply smiles and goes to the kitchen to cook. Luhan sends him a somewhat sour glance before Minseok just returns the same look, causing the other to join their mother-of-a-friend in the kitchen. Minseok stays on the couch, resigning to watching the same boring news cast before switching the channel over to soccer for Luhan. He goes to his room, passing by the excited boy that bounds like a deer towards the couch.

⚡🌦⚡

Where this sudden jolt of confidence came from, Minseok does not know. All he  _ does  _ know is that he's heading straight to the journalism department with his backpack slung over one shoulder. Behind him, Luhan is berating him with warnings about how this wouldn't end well and they should just wait for Junmyeon to tell him yes, this weatherman can meet with him or no, this weatherman cannot meet with him. Uncharacteristically, Minseok is suddenly impatient and insanely desperate to meet with the culprit that struck him with Cupid's arrow.

He stops just before the entrance to the towering building. Nerves were kicking in, and he's almost being self-diagnosed with having cold feet. Everything about this screams "bad idea" at him a little too late. Over Luhan's insistence that they do something else, he wrenches the door open and walks in. Thankfully, his friend follows him inside without hesitance.

At least if they were going down, they were going down together.

Immediately, they're lost. Where would they start looking? What room was a lecture hall and what was the broadcasting room? They'd look mighty stupid if they just barged into a random room.

"This was a bad idea, Baozi," Luhan huffs. "Where do we start looking?"

"Maybe" was all he could get out before the two of them could hear the familiar ring of Junmyeon's laugh echo in the large hall. They pretend to look at a map of the campus on their phone, scratching their heads and frowning in falsetto frustration. Their friend greets them, a slightly taller man walking beside him. It does not take more than a heartbeat for Minseok to recognize that it was Jongdae from Channel Twenty-One.

"I'm surprised to see you two," Junmyeon says rather innocently. "What are you doing here?"

Minseok gapes, and thankfully, Luhan was quick to cover him. "Minseok was trying to find Elysian Hall for his speech class. I just tagged along to try and help him."

"I have to go to Elysian Hall, actually," Jongdae from Channel Twenty-One said. "I can show him the building if that's alright."

"That'd be great!" Luhan and Junmyeon exclaim in unison. 

Minseok just nods, closing his mouth to save his dignity. He almost loses it when Jongdae's lips curl into a cute smile. Oh God, it was more gorgeous in-person than it was on TV.

"Cool! I'll see you later, Myeon?"

Junmyeon just nods.

"I'll catch you later, Lu," Minseok says. He catches knowing looks in his friends' eyes and smiles.

So with his heart caught somewhere between his throat and his chest, Minseok follows Jongdae to Elysian Hall. The atmosphere is sort of awkward initially, but it does not take long before Jongdae is filling in the silence with his voice. It is more silky than it is on TV, slightly pitched whenever he whines at one of Minseok's jokes and jabs. When he laughed, it felt like the whole of the real world dissolved into senseless noise and the only harmony was that gorgeous laugh that seemingly transported to another dimension. Then that gorgeous smile is oh so damn distracting that Minseok had almost ran into a few passing students a handful of times. They make it to Elysian Hall without any issues (minus the glares from the victims that almost got physically barrelled by the older student), and Minseok runs to hold the door open.

"Go ahead," Jongdae ushers. He frowns slightly when Minseok shakes his head.

"I'm a gentleman, and I think ladies should go first."

Jongdae lets out a huff while rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "Now I feel flustered."

Minseok only laughs, smiling wide and gummy. He catches the way Jongdae's cheeks pinken and the sight is as endearing as it is gorgeous. Curse Jongdae for making his heart flutter. He follows obediently after Jongdae, similar to a loyal dog following its owner.

Jongdae turns to look at him, expression inquisitive. “You said you had a class here?”

Minseok almost forgets about the fact that he “does” have a class in Elysian Hall. He half nods.

“Speech, right? With who?”

Though Minseok is smiling, he swears he could feel himself silently dying on the inside. He  _ never  _ thought about it that far. Hell, he never expected Jongdae to ask who his professor was. He scrambles through his head for any potential teachers he could have or did have, but nothing comes to mind. At least nothing related to speech. “I think…”

“Is it Miss Yeri?”

_ The graduate student? Of course! _ Minseok nods again. “Yeah,” he exclaims almost evenly. What a blatant lie.

“I had her last semester! I have my notes from her class at my dorm if you want me to give them to you later.”

Minseok’s torn between saying yes because he’d love to get Jongdae’s notes (and pray tell, his number) and saying no because he really doesn’t need speech notes. He does the logical thing and nods. “That’d be great actually. When do you want me to come over?”

“To be honest, I don’t really know what my schedule for today is like. But I can give you my number and text you when I’m free!”

Minseok wants to scream. Of course it’s freaking alright! He could melt on the spot because he just got Jongdae’s number.  _ Calm, Min, calm, _ he reminds himself. It is almost a task and a half later when he works to compose himself as he takes out his phone. “That would be wonderful.”

Jongdae beams at him (and as a result, unconsciously melts Minseok’s heart), quickly inputting his number into the older boy’s phone. He hands the phone back, adding, “Text me anytime.”

“I will. Thank you again.”

Minseok takes a deep breath and watches with slight confusion as a smirk blooms at the corner of Jongdae’s lips.

“I need to get going, but next time, if you wanted my number, you could have just asked.”

Now, Minseok gapes.

“You’re not a really great liar is what I’m trying to say,” Jongdae laughs. “I doubt you actually have a speech class and I think you already knew where Elysian Hall was. Besides, Elysian Hall has classes for chemistry.”

Minseok laughs awkwardly. He’d curse Luhan later. “Well, I’m sorry for lying to you.”

“No no, it’s okay. It was entertaining to say the least.” Jongdae’s smile turned sheepish for a minute. “Besides, I wanted to walk with you anyway.”

“Next time, I’ll treat you to lunch or breakfast or...something.”

“Yes, because you eat lunch before breakfast.”

“You know what I meant.”

Jongdae laughs again. Minseok is convinced that he’s in love. “I’d like that, sure. Well, I’ll catch you later. Your name was…?”

“Minseok. My name is Kim Minseok.”

“Jongdae,” the latter greets. “But something tells me that you already knew that?”

Minseok gives him a smile. “I’ll see you later, Jongdae.”

**Author's Note:**

> First XiuChen fic in a long while. I still love writing for them, and there are few longer fics that I have written/are still writing for them that I want to share. Also, I'm a fan of XiuHan as best friends.
> 
> If there are enough requests for it, I *may* write a XiuHan version of this fic featuring Jealous!Luhan. BUT we shall see. I suppose you can kinda see it here if you squint hard enough haha. Or, if there are enough requests for a XiuChen part 2, I can write a breakfast/lunch date scene with extra fluffiness and flirting on the side. :))


End file.
